Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Review of the biography of Amanda Berry Smith

Available here is a useful short review/book note of Adrienne Israel's biography of Amanda Berry Smith.
Posted by Grateful to the Dead at 01:05:35 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Mr. "Amazing Grace" as sentimental writer

John Newton's biographer, Bruce Hindmarsh, tells us that Newton wrote his own autobiography (The Life & Spirituality of John Newton: An Authentic Narrative) very much under the inspiration of a contemporary genre: the sensational adventure tale.

But that wasn't the only genre Newton had in mind as he wrote his tale. Newton was writing at just the time when a group of philosophically minded writers were creating that blockbuster of all written forms: the novel. And he didn't miss this development at all--in fact, he used many of the techniques and terms of the new novel form, whose philosophical underpinning was a major and much-ignored Enlightenment "creed": sentimentalism.

The other day, as I sketched some of the historical context for Newton's account for our "patron saints" class, I mused on this conjunction of the sentimental novel and the evangelical conversion narrative--for Newton's "authentic narrative" was hugely popular and much emulated among evangelicals of the late 18th and 19th centuries, and his use of sentimentalist conventions influenced, it seems to me, all conversion narratives to come.

Sentimentalism was not the hankie-wringing, insincere thing that word implies now. And it contained a conviction about how we know truth that was and is strikingly "non-modern."

(Some of what follows is reworked from a conversation on another part of this blog--that's just the kind of creative synergy I'd hoped would happen when I started it! For more, click here.):
Posted by Grateful to the Dead at 20:51:47 | Permanent Link | Comments (6) |

Fanny Crosby & Amanda Berry Smith: The power of the powerless

What helped a disabled woman (prolific hymnwriter Fanny Crosby) and a poor black woman (Amanda Berry Smith) exert a special power over middle-class white Victorian Christians seeking spiritual leadership?

Today a friend brought to my attention this well-written critical review by Anne Blue Wills of Edith Blumhofer's recent biography of Fanny Crosby. A quick clip:

"Aided by [a] richly detailed [historical] background, Blumhofer presents compelling readings of Crosby's most famous lyrics. The deep contextualization helps Blumhofer avoid sentimentalizing the hymnwriter as the blind poetess of legend. She instead depicts Crosby as an independent-minded participant in a vibrant (and profitable) cultural phenomenon."

This review triggered in me the question in my first paragraph, above--in particular, a throwaway comment by Wills on the "curiosity factor" of Crosby's disability, suggesting that this, along with her womanhood, may have helped her gain the profile she did as a songwriter. In short, I see real similarities between Crosby and Amanda Berry Smith--and not just because they were "curiosities." For my complete response to Anne (a colleague from our days at Duke), click here:
Posted by Grateful to the Dead at 17:07:27 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

New look--better? worse?

A friend suggested my "eye-ease" green wasn't so easy on the eyes. Is this new look better?
Posted by Grateful to the Dead at 16:54:28 | Permanent Link | Comments (2) |

Saturday, November 05, 2005

Christian History Newsletters--2002

During my years at Christian History & Biography magazine (formerly Christian History), I kept up a regular flow of online newsletters, posted at the magazine's site. Here are the linked titles of the 2002 newsletters, with the most recent coming first:

Posted by Grateful to the Dead at 09:37:12 | Permanent Link | Comments (2) |

Christian History Newsletters--2003

During my years at Christian History & Biography magazine (formerly Christian History), I kept up a regular flow of online newsletters, posted at the magazine's site. Here are the linked titles of the 2003 newsletters, with the most recent coming first:

Posted by Grateful to the Dead at 09:30:24 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Christian History newsletters--2004-2005

During my years at Christian History & Biography magazine (formerly Christian History), I kept up a regular flow of online newsletters, posted at the magazine's site. Here are the linked titles of the 2004-05 newsletters, with the most recent coming first:

Posted by Grateful to the Dead at 09:26:10 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |